


Salt, Stone, and Secrets

by timehopper



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Human/Monster Romance, M/M, Masturbation, MerMay, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Pining, Tentacle Dick, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:53:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24393079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timehopper/pseuds/timehopper
Summary: “They say there are monsters out there,” Claude whispers. He moves toward the water, lowers his lantern to it. “Creatures that sing and seduce and drown you when you fall into their arms.”The lantern floats away, quickly as the tide will allow. Sylvain joins him, kneeling on the rock.“Do you believe that?”Claude meets a stranger in Derdriu. Sylvain knows more than he lets on. Both of them keep secrets, but can't seem to let each other go.
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 23
Kudos: 208





	Salt, Stone, and Secrets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [omobot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/omobot/gifts).



> This fic is a birthday gift for omo! I asked if I could write her something and she gave me one hell of a prompt... and so here we are, with mer AU claudevain! And just in time for the tail end of Mermay (ha ha)...
> 
> This ended up way longer than expected but I had SUCH a blast coming up with and writing it... I don't do AUs very often (because I go a little nuts with worldbuilding) so it was great stepping out of my comfort zone! I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it!

It all begins, as most life-altering events do, with a question. 

“Who is he?” 

Claude asks it over rim of his wine glass as he lowers it from his lips. A stranger catches his eye from across the banquet hall, red hair standing out in the warm light of the room. He smiles, briefly, but quickly turns his attention back to his current conversation partner, who flips her pink hair over her shoulder and titters at whatever he’s said.

Judith follows Claude’s gaze as the man leans in close to Hilda (no doubt whispering sweet nothings in her ear, if the blush she hides behind her hand is any indication). “Who?” she asks. “The one speaking to Lady Goneril?”

“Yeah.” Claude doesn’t look away, even as Judith’s familiar mocking laughter reaches his ears. He's been watching the man all night, flitting from person to person (from girl to girl, really), stopping to chat only a moment before moving on to whoever catches his eye next. Nothing out of the ordinary, and Claude wouldn’t have been interested at all, had the man not stopped when he’d reached Margrave Edmund's daughter. 

Claude is not well-acquainted with Marianne von Edmund, even despite her father's newfound standing with the Alliance's Great Lords. She's shy, withdrawn, and pulls back from conversation at every opportunity. Even now, at a celebration honouring her father (adoptive, or so Claude has heard) and his ascension to power as the newest of the Alliance's Great Lords, she seems to prefer sticking to the corners of the hall, avoiding the other guests - distinguished or not - whenever possible. 

It's odd, then, that she had given this strange man her attention so readily. That she had smiled behind her hand as he'd pushed an errant lock of hair behind her ear, and laughed as he’d bowed to her in apology. 

Judith's elbow cuts through Claude's thoughts, jabbing into his side as she answers his initial question with one of her own. 

“You couldn’t possibly be jealous?” 

That finally draws Claude’s attention away from the stranger. He laughs and grins, the expression falling over his face naturally (if insincerely). 

“No, no,” he says. A flash of pink hair passes by in the corner of his vision - decidedly _not_ Hilda's - and Claude raises his voice, just enough that it will carry more easily without the whole room overhearing. “I just don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone speak with Lady Goneril for so long before. She must be terribly interested in him.” 

He glances at Holst. Predictably, the general changes course, moving with a marked hurry in his step toward where his sister chats up this new handsome stranger. 

Judith shakes her head, but the smile that tugs at the corner of her lips is clear as day. “All right, kid. What’s this really about?” 

Ah, so she had seen through his ruse after all. Good - Claude would expect nothing less from someone he'd deemed worthy of his confidence.

“Just curious, I suppose,” he says simply. “I haven’t seen him before, and this isn’t the kind of gathering commoners are typically invited to. Either he’s a noble that’s risen to prominence in the last little while without my realization - which, not to overstate my own competence, is unlikely - or something’s going on.” 

“Ah.” They both turn to look at him again. He’s got his hands raised in front of him, a winning smile on his face even as General Holst invades his personal space. He seems unfazed, or perhaps even entertained.

Something tightens in Claude’s stomach.

“I’ve seen him around before, but I admit, I know very little of him,” Judith says. “Shall I find out?” 

“Please do.” Holst drags Hilda away by the shoulders, and she waves goodbye to the man with a flirtatious little wiggle of her fingers. Now, left alone, his gaze wanders, eyes dragging across the hall as he lifts a glass to his mouth and drinks. 

He lands on Claude. Winks at him. And Claude doesn’t know what it is – perhaps it’s just the lighting, or perhaps just the wine getting to him – but the stranger’s eyes seem unnaturally bright. 

Golden. 

He speaks to Judith without averting his gaze: “But be quiet about it, will you?” 

And with that, he’s off. 

“Duke Riegan,” the stranger greets, setting aside his drink and sweeping himself into a long, deep bow. He looks up, still bent over, and smiles at Claude from behind a curtain of fiery red hair. “I was wondering if I’d get a chance to speak with you tonight. To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

He straightens up. Claude watches his eyes - brown. Warm, yes, and almost amber, but far from gold. Perhaps the colour had been a trick of the light after all. 

They’re no less pretty for it, though. 

“Well, I _had_ been intending to speak with Lady Goneril, but it seems someone else has beaten me to it.” A lie, and he’s sure the stranger knows it. He had been still when their eyes had met, after all. 

“Looks like you’re going to have to wait in line,” the man says, inclining his head toward where Holst gently scolds her. “I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait, though. She’s quite the… conversationalist.” 

“Oh, I’m sure. But it seems I’ve found someone more interesting in the meantime, anyhow.” 

“Me?” The man smiles, no doubt meant to appear incredulous, but there’s something off about it - it’s the shell of an emotion, not the emotion itself. He must have known Claude’s intent from the start. 

Interesting, indeed.

“Mhm.” Claude smiles back easily. “Never seen your face around here before. And I make it a point to know everyone who comes to these silly, stuffy gatherings.” 

The joke earns him a snort - real, it seems - and the man shakes his head. “Stuffy is right! All this just for Edmund replacing Daphnel at your table? Gotta say, you Alliance men sure know how to throw a party.

“And,” he continues, voice dropping as he inches closer to Claude. “How to make your guests feel special.” He winks; Claude grins back automatically. He’s comfortable with a little flirtation, disingenuous though it might be, and the stranger seems to fall into it - and for it - easily.

“I do my best,” he says. “Especially if the guest is as charming as you.” 

Another laugh, accompanied by a smile Claude has seen a hundred times on himself when he used to practice in the mirror. “Charming, huh? You have no idea.” 

He leans in, gaze pointedly lowering and grin sharpening around the edges. “But If that’s what you think, then I’m amazed it’s taken you so long to come and speak with me. I’ve been to lots of these little parties, you know. But, ah, you’ve been away for a while, haven’t you? Studying, or so the rumours go.” 

Claude keeps his face carefully neutral. He steps back, just enough to draw the stranger’s eyes back where he wants them – to his own. “You’re well-informed,” he says. 

The man shrugs. “I try.” He pauses, looks around, takes a step forward, larger than the one Claude had taken back - just enough to breach the boundaries of personal space. “It’s Sylvain, by the way. My name. And it’s a pleasure to finally meet the esteemed Duke Riegan face-to-face.” 

He holds out his hand. Claude looks down at it and takes it with no hesitation and only the most charming of smiles. “Sylvain,” he repeats, the name light on his tongue. It suits him, somehow. Feels right to say aloud, too, in ways Claude can’t explain. “The pleasure is all mine.” 

* * *

He sees Sylvain a few times after that: in the square, at the market, by the seaside. A wave, at first, a friendly smile; a spoken greeting, a small chat as they walk together later on; a disengagement from a previous conversation, a turn away from a girl’s batting lashes, an arm linked in an arm as Sylvain drags him to his latest favourite haunt. They talk about little things - the gulls circling the beach, stories they’ve heard, little bits and pieces of gossip. Nothing terribly interesting, and next to nothing on Sylvain himself.

Even Judith, expert that she is, finds out precious little about him beyond what Claude himself has learned: Sylvain has been in Derdriu a few months, he has a bit of a reputation with women, and he claims to be from Sreng. 

“Sreng?” Claude asks when she makes her report, two weeks after celebrating Margrave Edmund’s ascension. “I thought they were…” 

Judith shrugs. “A refugee, perhaps.” That doesn’t sound right. Gautier isn’t known for letting refugees escape, and Faerghus as a whole is not kind to outsiders. “Must have taken some real work to make it all the way to Derdriu, if that’s the case.” 

“Hm.” Claude turns from Judith, eyes turning toward the north-west horizon. Toward Sreng. “I see. Thank you, Judith.” 

She bows to him. “Anything for my favourite duke.” 

He scoffs at the endearment, at the motherly tone she purposely invokes. But as the door closes behind her and Claude stares out at the sea, he finds his thoughts drifting away from Sreng and ever-slowly back toward Sylvain. 

* * *

Claude has always loved festivals. The food, the dancing, the atmosphere - lively, loud, exciting. Though the other nobles of the Alliance will no doubt scold him later for the walk he takes past the stalls lining the waterfront and the way he so casually greets everyone who calls to him, he can hardly find it in him to care. The food is good, the evening is warm, and everyone seems to be in good spirits. 

He descends the stairs leading to the beach, where throngs of people have gathered with floating lanterns in their hands. The crowd parts for him when he gets near, but he purposely skims its edges: he is not here, as they are, to send a lantern out to sea – for now. He is merely here to observe.

And so, it seems, is someone else. 

Sylvain sits on the rocks, forearm casually slung over a raised knee. He smiles as the lanterns - hundreds, thousands of them - sail away, carried by the ocean current and the declining tide. 

Claude doesn’t know what draws him over. Maybe it’s the golden glow, reflected in Sylvain’s gaze even from so great a distance. Maybe it’s the familiarity of the look on his face - longing, lonely; more things Claude has seen in the mirror behind closed doors and shuttered windows. Maybe it’s the mystery of him, this stranger from a land destroyed by war, who seems to know more than he lets on. 

Or maybe it’s something else entirely, a spark of attraction he does not yet wish to acknowledge. But whatever it is, it’s far from Claude’s mind as he lowers himself to sit next to Sylvain. 

“No lantern?” Sylvain asks, looking up at Claude with a lazy, serene smile on his face. It’s infectious enough that Claude feels a smile of his own wash over his face, but he steels himself against it. 

“Not yet,” he says. “Thought I’d wait a while and watch everyone else, first. Keep them guessing.” 

“Guessing?” Sylvain looks intrigued - exactly the reaction Claude had wanted from him. “Sounds to me like somebody’s keeping secrets.” 

“Maybe,” Claude says. He notes the way Sylvain leans in, the way his pupils contract - a predator zeroing in on prey. He’s not about to spill his past, though - not this early - and so instead, Claude asks, “Do you know what these lanterns are for?” 

Sylvain shakes his head, keeps watching Claude with rapt, unblinking attention. He looks, for lack of a better word, fascinated. Charmingly so, in a way Claude is certain must be affected. For how much he had seemed to know at the ascension celebration, it seems odd that he’d be in the dark about this. Surely he’d have tried to learn the purpose of this festival, even if he is not from Derdriu? 

But Claude doesn’t let his suspicion colour his voice. “Huh. I suppose that makes sense, since you’re not from around here. I take it you don’t have any festivals like this in Sreng, then?” 

Sylvain tenses, the barest tightening of his jaw. He’s struck a nerve, caught him off-guard. Claude fights the triumphant smile that threatens to bloom over his features.

“...You’re well-informed,” Sylvain says at last, voice as even as Claude’s had been more than a month ago saying the exact same thing. It’s not quite an admission, and Claude gets the sudden feeling there’s more to the story of Sylvain’s background than just his connection to Sreng, but he doesn’t push it. 

Not yet. All in due time.

“Like I said…” Claude grins, moves around so that he cuts further into Sylvain’s peripheral vision. “I make it a point to know my guests.” 

Sylvain laughs. The tension doesn’t leave his body, not entirely, but the joke seems to leave him a touch more at ease. “I’d hardly call this a court.” 

“Hey, now.” Claude frowns, mock-hurt. “We’re still in Derdriu. You could argue the entire city is my court.”

Another laugh. “I suppose you could. In that case, I’m flattered you consider me a part of it. What would you have me do first then, Duke Riegan?”

Claude grins and reaches out to him. “Your first order of business,” he says, helping to heft Sylvain to his feet as he takes it. “Is to accompany me to the shore. It’s time I set my lantern a-sail.” 

* * *

It isn’t hard to find a lantern. They’re everywhere, vendors lining the sea wall, each one selling a different sort of pattern. Claude chooses one with colours reminiscent of his mother’s favourite silks back home and a pattern to match, green paint and gold ink. 

“So,” Sylvain says as Claude passes the vendor a handful of coins. “Are you gonna tell me about the lanterns?” 

“Ah, right.” Claude smiles, pleased at Sylvain’s curiosity. “They’re for those we’ve lost at sea. Every year, we hold this festival to honour the men, women, and children who never made it home... or who never found the home they were looking for. We light the lanterns, send them out to sea, and wait for the lights to guide those wayward spirits back.” 

A quiet smile tugs at Sylvain’s lips. There's something in it that Claude can't quite read, equal parts unsettling and intriguing. "Back where?" 

"Here, I guess." A pause. It’s too long, too stilted, and Claude realizes too late. Hastily, he adds: "To the goddess.”

Sylvain's smile grows. "The goddess, huh? Heh, you almost sound like you believe that."

Claude shrugs with one shoulder, shifts the unlit lantern under his arm. "Why wouldn't I?" 

"I dunno." Sylvain lifts his arms to rest his hands behind his head. He looks as if he wants to say something else, eyes boring into Claude as if searching for answers - but whatever he’s thinking, he doesn’t say. And it’s a relief, really. Claude doesn’t like feeling as if he’s being seen right through.

“I think I’d like to light one, too.” Sylvain’s voice sounds distant. Claude looks up at him, and finds his gaze just as far away, somewhere past the golden lanterns’ glow reflected in his eyes.

* * *

Sylvain buys a lantern with a painted-shell pattern. When Claude asks why, he says it’s because he couldn’t tell if the little gold-painted lines were supposed to look like shells or scales, and he wondered if lighting it would make it clearer. 

“And what about you?” Sylvain asks. “Why that pattern?” 

Claude looks at it. Smiles. “It reminds me of my mother,” he says. 

Sylvain steps closer as cobblestone streets give way to dirt path and craggy, uneven rocks. They step over the stones, move back into the spot they’d been in before. “You lost your mother at sea,” he says. It’s not a question. 

Claude remains silent. He sets the lantern down on the rock, pulls a matchbook from his pocket. Strikes one, holds it out to Sylvain. Sylvain allows his lantern to be lit, and pauses to admire it when Claude moves away to do his own. 

“They say there are monsters out there,” Claude whispers. He moves toward the water, lowers his lantern to it. “Creatures that sing and seduce and drown you when you fall into their arms.”

The lantern floats away, quickly as the tide will allow. Sylvain joins him, kneeling on the rock.

“Do you believe that?” he asks. Sylvain doesn’t look at Claude, but Claude watches his eyes. Gold, gold, gold, illuminated by his lantern’s gentle glow. 

Claude laughs. He reaches out, puts his hands over Sylvain’s, and helps him push his lantern out to sea. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But whatever’s out there, they say they got my mother.” 

The water sloshes around their hands, the remnants of a wave's bubbling crest washing over their overlapping fingers. Sylvain pulls back, hand snapping away hard and fast as if the water had burned him. 

"Cold," he says by way of explanation, shoving his hands into his pockets. Claude turns away, somehow feeling like a child who had seen something he shouldn’t have. He puts the thought out of his mind and watches their lanterns drift away together, further and further out to sea.

* * *

"So who was it?" Claude asks later, as they walk along the wall separating the city from the sea. Thousands of flickering lights dance along the horizon, their glow somehow still reaching Sylvain as he balances on the wall's edge.

"Who?" he asks, a smile on his face. He's a little unsteady on his feet, and Claude offers him a hand to help him down. Sylvain takes it.

"The person you lost."

"Ah." His grin falters and fades, and Sylvain looks out across the horizon. "Nobody, really."

Claude wants to press. He's so close, so close to learning something. But now is not the time, he realizes, and the question he wants to ask is not the correct one, and so asks something else instead: "Then why send out a lantern?"

A small laugh. Sylvain turns back to him, something wry and unsettling tugging at his lips, twisting and curling them into a smile. "No reason. I just wanted to."

* * *

Claude visits that spot again, over and over. In the evenings, under starlight, whenever he needs a moment of peace - or whenever he's lonely and seeks the comfort of the sea, familiar here as it is back home. 

Often, he is alone. Sometimes, he is not. 

Tonight, he finds Sylvain sitting down and leaning against the cliff face, eyes shut against the breeze as it stirs his damp hair. His shirt is untucked, unbuttoned, as if he’d just put it on.

"Late night swim?" Claude asks, settling into place next to him. The stars are bright tonight, but not enough for him to see any real detail on Sylvain's face. 

"You could say that." Sylvain cracks an eye open, tilts his head toward Claude, just a little bit. It’s too dark for him to really tell, but he swears he sees a glint of gold in them, just as he had all that time ago, across a brilliant hall.

Claude wonders what he means.

He opens his mouth, intent on asking, but stops when Sylvain moves, when he feels knees bracket his thighs and long, graceful fingers trail along his jaw.

Sylvain looks into his eyes. Claude stares back. Brown. Dark, deep brown, almost black in the lack of moonlight.

Claude's hand finds Sylvain's waist. He touches it, lightly, and when he finds no resistance, no flinch away from the contact, he settles his hand there, firm and warm against the cool fabric of Sylvain's still-unbuttoned shirt.

"Duke Riegan..." Sylvain's eyes dart down to his mouth. Back up again.

"Claude." He leans up, brushes his lips against Sylvain's. "You can call me Claude."

A smile spreads over Sylvain's lips, felt more than seen. "Claude, then."

They kiss, soft and gentle, world narrowing to nothing but them and the sound of the waves lapping at the shore. Sylvain tastes like salt, like the sea, like the first gasp of air after breaking the surface: overwhelming, comforting, jarring.

Claude pulls back. Licks his lips. Shivers, unpleasantly, at the taste. Sylvain laughs.

"Next time," Claude says, grinning as he leans in again, "Don't drink seawater before you kiss me."

* * *

He dreams about the waves.

They roll over him as he lies in the sand, eyes shut against the sun. He can hear laughter around him, a distant song, and wonders, in his dream, if he has the voice to sing along.

He opens his mouth. Tries to echo the notes, mimic the sound. Saltwater fills his lungs instead, bubbling up inside and around him. He swallows it, welcoming the flood as the waves carry him away from the beach and into their grasp, dragging him beneath the surface with clawed hands and sweet, seductive promises.

Claude opens his eyes and watches the sun grow dim as he’s pulled ever further away from it. He should be scared, he thinks – it’s cold here, at the bottom of the sea – but he’s smiling instead, happy as he takes hold of the hand at his neck and watches two tiny, golden lights flicker up above him.

He wakes up.

* * *

Claude spends the next week recalling the phantom taste of saltwater on his tongue and the echo of sea-song in his ears.

* * *

"You never told me," Claude begins, waves lapping at his heels as he drags his feet through the water, "Who you lost at sea."

Sylvain's arms are a firm circle around him, closed by hands gripping wrists. Claude leans back, rests his head on Sylvain's shoulders. Watches his eyes.

"It's not important," he says, in a way that makes Claude think it is, in fact, very important.

"You’re right," Claude pretends to agree. "What's more important is the _how_ , not the _who_."

Sylvain's grip tightens. Relaxes, just a split-second too slow. Claude pretends, again, that he doesn't notice. "Do you remember what I said at the festival? About something being out there?"

He watches Sylvain's face, finds nothing deeper in his eyes than quiet amusement. "I do." He lets go, allows Claude to sit up. They both smile out at the horizon.

"People have been talking," Claude says. “Claiming they’ve seen mermaids.”

It’s silent for a moment, a few seconds of tension – but then Sylvain bursts out laughing, curling in on himself, shoulders hunched as he tries to calm down. Claude is glad he's put a bit of distance between them.

There's something in that laughter, though. Something pretty. Something that makes Claude lean forward, want to reach out...

Sylvain quiets, and Claude falls back as if he'd been caught doing about to steal. If he notices, however, Sylvain says nothing about it. "Mermaids?” He asks, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “You don't honestly believe that, do you?"

"Hey!" Claude crawls forward for the sole purpose of nudging Sylvain with his shoulder. "You shouldn't laugh, you know. Half the people in this city are convinced my mother was lost to merpeople!"

Sylvain laughs again, coughs to try and mask it. “Right, right; the lantern. That’s why you sent it out.” He shakes his head, studies Claude with lingering amusement. “So is it true, then?”

"Gods, no!" This time it's Claude's turn to laugh. "She just ran off and eloped – and not with a mermaid, before you ask, nice as my father’s voice it – without a word to anyone. She didn’t even tell her _own_ father; may he find peace among the heavens.”

“So you lied about the lantern.” Sylvain’s smile relaxes, ever-minutely, though there’s still something sharp and wary in his gaze. If Claude hadn’t become so accustomed to watching that smile, to looking for any hint of something deeper in it - of _finding_ so much more depth in it - he may not have noticed. But he does, and he leans in, tip of his nose almost brushing Sylvain’s. 

“I told you I like to keep people guessing,” he says. “Besides, everyone has secrets.” 

There’s a small shift in Sylvain’s expression, the tiniest little dilation of his pupils, noticeable only for how close they are. Claude delights in it, this minute little tic that gives away more than Sylvain ever could with his words.

“That said,” Claude breathes, “If our positions were reversed, she’d probably think she had to light one for me. But she left Derdriu - ran off and away from the prying eyes of stuffy politicians. Seems to be all the happier for it, too.” 

Sylvain catches Claude's wrists. “And you?” he asks, slowly pushes him down, lowering Claude’s body to the ground and pinning his hands above his head. His smile turns predatory. "You’re here, exactly where she didn’t want to be. Right in the thick of all these idiotic nobles and their power struggles, happy to be prey."

Claude shivers, Sylvain’s breath tickling his face. They’re so close. "Mm. Prey, am I? A sad, scared little deer among lions? Is that what you think of me?” He leans up, tilts his head just-so. An almost-kiss. “Oh, or perhaps I’m nothing but a prize for a pretty man with golden eyes..."

Claude hooks a leg around Sylvain's waist and lurches, quickly, to one side; Sylvain gets caught up in the momentum. Suddenly, he's below Claude, a knee between his legs and a hand on his neck. "Then again, maybe you're the one caught in _my_ trap."

"We’ll see." He’s so quiet Claude can hardly hear him, but every thought urging him to ask what Sylvain means washes away as he’s pulled down into a deep, devouring kiss.

He’s starting to think he understands, anyway.

* * *

He invites Sylvain home.

Claude leads him up the stairs out of the entrance hall and past a multitude of doors and halls and empty rooms until they reach his chambers, hand in hand and stopping only to pull each other into kisses - up against walls, gathered in arms, in the middle of an empty hall. 

They pass through the door to Claude's bedroom, and if there had been wandering hands before, they were nothing compared to now: Sylvain's threads his fingers through Claude's hair, nails scraping his scalp (sharp, painful, pleasant) as they comb through it; one hand lands on the back of his neck, squeezing, pulling Claude in closer, closer, until once again their lips meet in a hungry, desperate kiss.

Claude's hands are not idle, either. He slides them under the lapels of Sylvain's light jacket, up over his strong, broad shoulders, down over his back. He slips it off, neither of them bothering to break apart to pick it up as it and the shirt beneath fall to the floor. Claude presses himself to Sylvain's bare chest, not caring that he is still mostly clothed himself, and pushes.

They move, lips still joined, Sylvain backward and Claude forward, stumbling over each other as they make their way toward the bed. They're together on it soon, breaking apart so Claude can kneel between Sylvain's legs and run curious hands over his chest.

He lays Sylvain down flat on the bed, crawls over him and leans down to capture his mouth again. Sylvain cups Claude’s face in both hands, holding him still while he parts his lips and lets a tongue slip past them. Claude sighs into him; Sylvain arches up, breaking their kiss; Claude presses his lips to Sylvain's neck, over and over and over again, tasting salt as he makes his way down.

 _"Claude."_ Sylvain moans his name on a broken breath; Claude sinks his teeth in, unable to help himself. He needs this, needs Sylvain, needs-

"Duke Riegan."

The knock on his door is soft and the voice seeping through it gentle, but serious in that affected, fake-motherly way Claude knows all too well.

And never has he been so, _so_ annoyed with it.

Sylvain grabs at Claude’s back as he lifts himself away. He’s pulled down and to the side, just close enough that Sylvain can whisper, _"Be quick"_ against the shell of his ear before his grip slackens and Claude slips through it.

He looks back over his shoulder, drinks in the sight of Sylvain propped up against the pillows with his legs spread wide. Sylvain makes no attempt to hide the way his eyes hungrily drag over Claude in return, from his head to his toes and back again. For his obvious interest, Claude rewards him with a wink.

“Don’t worry. I won’t be long.”

He runs a hand through his hair, takes a calming breath, and leaves the room.

* * *

Judith's report is blessedly brief and to-the-point. It is also _overwhelmingly unimportant_ in the face of Claude's much more present dilemma. Count Gloucester's complaints about merchant routes can wait until tomorrow, and he makes sure to tell Judith as much.

She gives him a knowing look as he retreats back toward his room, and tells him, "Careful, lover boy. Hope you're not out of your depth."

* * *

When Claude closes the door behind him, he finds Sylvain has moved from the bed to the balcony, silhouette blurred by the thin, translucent drapes billowing in the breeze. There’s something… strange about him now, something different in his posture and in the way his hair sits, too still for the evening’s wind. It’s hard to tell when he’s facing away, though, and Claude grows curious. He takes a step forward, bare feet light on the tile, and-

Sylvain hums. 

It’s quiet, but Claude freezes at the sound all the same, something stirring in his chest as Sylvain’s voice grows louder, crescendos into full-blown song, lyric-less and melodic. 

He blinks. Watches Sylvain. Listens.

The song is familiar, somehow, creeping in around the edges of his mind like water seeping through the cracks in a stone. It fills him, draws him in, and suddenly, nothing matters anymore. Not Gloucester, not Judith. Nothing but Sylvain.

His knees feel weak. Claude tries to take another step, but instead stumbles forward and just barely manages to keep his balance. He looks up from the polished tile floors, back to Sylvain -

 _Sylvain._ That’s right. That’s where he needs to be.

Claude moves forward, one step at a time, steady, until the melody of Sylvain’s song shifts and the whole world spins on its side.

“Claude!”

The song ends, and suddenly Sylvain is there, on his knees, running his hands over Claude’s shoulders, his neck, his face. Claude looks up at him, mind still reeling. His eyes are beautiful. So bright, too. Shimmering gold, even shadowed by his lashes. How is a colour like that even possible? 

Claude sits up, aided by a hand at his back. He reaches for Sylvain’s other hand, the one resting on his shoulder, and laces their fingers together. He doesn’t know why, exactly - all he knows is this is right, this feels good. 

Sylvain’s eyes flick to their joined hands and back up again, almost too quickly for Claude to notice. But how could he not, when all he wants is those lovely golden eyes on him? 

“Are you okay?” Sylvain sounds pretty. So pretty, with his voice low like that. Claude can’t help but smile. 

“Why’d you stop?” he asks. It’s hard just to form the words - strange, he’s never had trouble with that before - but his tongue feels heavy in his mouth, his mind airy and light. It’s as if a mist has settled over him, cool and pleasant as the breeze even for how thick it is.

Sylvain’s jaw tenses, but his hands are gentle as they resume tracing Claude’s skin. “Sorry,” he says. “Thought I hurt you.” 

“No, no.” Claude shakes his head. How could Sylvain possibly hurt him? He’d tripped on his own. “I meant your singing.” 

Sylvain looks away. He purses his lips in a strange sort of grimace, but there’s a smile beneath the expression, too, buried beneath his unease. “You weren’t supposed to hear that,” he mumbles, so low under his breath Claude almost doesn’t hear it. But Claude reaches for him, caresses his jaw with the backs of his fingers. 

“Your voice is beautiful.” 

Sylvain ducks his head, captures Claude’s index finger between his lips and kisses it. He looks up, eyes veiled by long, dark lashes. He doesn’t quite meet Claude’s eyes. “So I’m told,” he says, and Claude takes Sylvain’s chin, thumb running over his bottom lip as he tilts Sylvain’s head up to meet his gaze.

“Kiss me,” he says. 

Sylvain searches his eyes. He opens his mouth, a question on the tip of his tongue. But he closes it again, and leans in - close, so close…

He stops a hair’s breadth from Claude’s lips. Sylvain opens his mouth again, but Claude leans in the rest of the way, closes the distance between them and steals the words from him before they can be spoken. 

And his heart _sings_. 

Claude threads his hands in Sylvain’s hair to pull him close. Sylvain’s sigh turns into a moan as he opens his mouth further, and Claude slips his tongue inside to taste him - salt and sea, familiar, all-consuming. He can’t think of the words to describe this feeling, so lost is he in it - in pressing fingertips to soft, shivering skin, in pushing against him, pulling him close to dig his hands in and _hold_. 

He’s wanted this for so long. Longer than he’s dared to admit, even to himself. Stolen kisses against the rocks are nothing compared to this, to Sylvain between his legs and devouring him with hands and lips and teeth and tongue, and Claude wants _more_ , is suddenly insatiable with the need for it. 

He breaks away just long enough to pant, “Bed,” against Sylvain’s mouth. He surges forward to kiss him again, but Sylvain shifts away, breaking it too soon. He doesn’t go far, though, just enough to help Claude to his feet and sweep him back off them.

“Impatient,” Sylvain teases as he carries Claude to his bed. The journey is blessedly short, and as soon as his back hits the mattress Claude pulls Sylvain down to him again, a hand tracing over his stomach and toward the pants he’s still wearing.

Sylvain catches his wrist. “Not yet,” he whispers, shutting down any protest Claude had been about to make with a quick, hard kiss. “Let me take care of you.”

The words stir something in Claude's mind – a break in the fog. He sits up as Sylvain shifts down, lips at his neck, his collarbone, his chest. "C'mon," Claude says. "It's no fun if I don't get to touch you too.”

"You'll get your chance." Sylvain grins against him as he keeps moving downward. He opens up Claude's shirt as he goes, fingers working quickly enough he doesn't have to halt the path his mouth traces over heated skin.

" _Sylvain_ ," Claude whines, head falling back and eyes turning up toward the ceiling. He feels laughter against his ribs, shivers when it's followed by teeth dragging across them.

"Relax," Sylvain says. "I've got you."

Claude nods, unsure if Sylvain even notices. He lets his eyes fall shut, forces himself to focus. The fog that had fallen over his mind is nearly gone now, and with every press of lips to his skin, every flick of tongue against it, things become clearer.

Sylvain reaches his pants, opens them with a practiced flick of the thumb. He keeps moving down, keeps kissing Claude through his breeches, stopping only to tug them down and free Claude's cock from its confines.

"Is this what you want?" Sylvain asks. He runs his fingers up and down Claude's length, tracing it from base to tip. He looks up, and for the first time in what feels like far too long, Claude looks into Sylvain's eyes.

Brown.

He nods. _“Yes.”_

Sylvain smiles, and that's the last thing Claude sees before he's taken into Sylvain's mouth and surrounded by warm, wet heat. He claws at the sheets, fights against the urge to buck up into Sylvain's mouth – loses the fight, but it doesn’t matter, because Sylvain takes him all the way in anyway, right up until the head of Claude's cock hits the back of his throat.

 _"Gods-"_ Claude writhes beneath Sylvain, lifts a hand to his mouth so he can bite down on it to keep himself from crying out. "Sylvain, please-"

The hand at his mouth is quickly joined by one of Sylvain's resting over it reassuringly. Claude squeezes it, presses his lips to the back of it, whispers a litany of curses and praises against it as Sylvain works him over.

And then he comes, too soon and not soon enough, arching off the bed and spilling himself down Sylvain's throat. He feels a tongue stroke him through it, feels Sylvain's throat tighten and relax as he swallows down everything he can.

When Claude is completely spent, cock soft and body sagging against the mattress, Sylvain releases him and crawls up his body. He captures Claude's mouth in a kiss; draws out a moan as Claude tastes himself on Sylvain's tongue.

All too soon, Sylvain pulls away, smiling softly. Claude reaches for him, pushes a strand of hair out of his eyes. "Syl..."

"Shh." Sylvain takes Claude's hand, leans down to kiss his forehead. "It's okay. Don't worry about me."

"But-"

" _Shhh_ ," Sylvain repeats. He starts to hum, low and quiet. The fog that had cleared slowly starts to seep back into the crevices of Claude's mind, and he shakes his head, trying to ward it off.

"Please..."

"I told you, you'll have your chance. Another time, though." Sylvain's voice slides seamlessly from hum to words, never once losing its melodic lilt. "For now, my prince… sleep."

Prince? Claude frowns, blinking blearily. That’s not right. Sylvain shouldn’t know that. How had he...?

He shakes his head again. "Will you be here when I wake up?" he asks, unable to finish the question in his mind before he can really think of it. A quiet need replaces his unease instead - the need to touch Sylvain, to hold him, to keep him here.

"No." Sylvain kisses him again, still humming against his lips, and only stops when Claude slips away, falls back into a dreamless slumber. “But I’ll see you again soon.” 

* * *

Hours later, Claude wakes to an empty bed. True to his word, Sylvain had left sometime in the night, leaving the bed as cold as if he’d never been there. 

Yet he lingers, still, in the song that plays over and over in Claude’s mind, fainter with every overlapping round. Claude closes his eyes, desperately tries to cling to it. He touches himself to it, working his hand furiously over his half-hard cock and trying, trying, failing to get back that feeling of Sylvain, mouth wrapped around him-

He falls back against the bed, frustrated and unsatisfied. The song is gone.

* * *

He doesn’t see Sylvain for nearly a week after that. Not in town, not at the market, not with a pretty girl on his arm or an old woman scolding him for his advances. He’s not even in their spot, on the rocks at the base of the cliff overlooking the sea. It nearly drives him mad, all this searching - not just in its fruitlessness, but in the fact that Claude's mind is so completely occupied with it. With the need for answers, for clarity, for - for _Sylvain_ , plain and simple _._

But he finds him, eventually, sitting on the sea wall, feet dangling over the edge. Claude has half a mind to throw him over it, but as always, he remains composed, even as Sylvain turns to watch him approach.

He says nothing as Claude lays his elbows on the ledge and leans against them. Very little needs to be said. He's angry, yes, about lots of things - but the fact that Sylvain is still here fills Claude with more comfort than he dares to admit.

"How did you know?" Claude asks. He doesn't need to specify what, and he doesn't need to look at Sylvain to know he's smiling, a pointed tug at the corner of his mouth.

"Same way you know I'm not from Sreng." Sylvain says it airily, casually, as if he hadn't just revealed, again, that he knows far more than he should. "You have tells, _Your Highness_. Little things you say and do that don't feel Fódlan." He shrugs with one shoulder, turns to look at Claude. His eyes are as sharp as his grin and almost as dangerous. "It's okay. You said it yourself: everyone has secrets."

Gods, studying abroad, the pattern on a lantern. Running off to a land of idiot politicians when his mother had run _from_ it. _Little things_. Annoyed as he is that Sylvain had pieced it together, Claude can't deny he's impressed - and, maybe, a little pleased.

Nobody has ever figured him out like this before. Not from so little to go off of, and not after only a few months of friendship (or whatever it is they have). He's suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to kiss Sylvain.

And so he does.

He reaches up, takes Sylvain by the back of the neck (cold, again - how is his skin always so cold, even in the warm light of the sun?) and pulls him down. Their lips meet; Claude flicks his tongue against Sylvain's, pulls away just as quickly as he'd come.

"Thought I told you to call me Claude," he says.

"Does that mean you forgive me?” Sylvain leans forward. “That you trust me?”

Their noses brush. Claude pulls back instinctively.

Space between them now, he slowly, slowly breathes in. Sand and sea, stone and salt. Claude has never trusted anyone, not completely: there's always been a wall, a barrier, something holding him back and keeping others away. But Sylvain – Sylvain has been pressed up against that wall for so long now, pulling himself over it and straddling it, holding out a hand for Claude to draw him over the rest of the way. And now here he is, again, holding out that same hand, waiting for an answer, for that final confirmation before he reveals himself, as well. Before they dive, together, over the wall and into the unknown.

Claude swallows. He leans forward again, threads his fingers through Sylvain's.

"Yes."

The kiss that follows is soft, gentle, chaste. Silent. Like a first, somehow, though they've shared many like this before, and many much deeper.

Sylvain’s eyes are half-lidded as he pulls back and gazes into Claude's. "Then find me again," he says. "At the beach, tonight, after the city's gone to sleep. There’s something I want to show you."

He pushes himself off the wall's ledge, lands in the sand at its base. He looks up at Claude, smiles, and holds his hand up in wave goodbye. "I'll be waiting."

* * *

Claude has no problem with lying. He’s never been one to care about going back on his word if it means it will protect him; and yet still, he finds himself walking toward the beach, heart pounding beneath his light cloak as he sneaks away under the light of the full moon.

When he arrives, Sylvain is already there, turned away and facing the sea. His clothes have been cast aside already, laid out flat on the rocks, carefully out of the way of the rolling waves.

Claude steps off the stairs and onto the sand. One, two, three steps, his boots leaving shallow imprints as they go. Sylvain shifts, aware of his presence, but does not turn to face him.

Claude’s breath catches as he realizes, suddenly, that he’s about to witness something he never thought he would. That he’s about to find out what, exactly, is out there.

"You already know what I’m going to say, don't you?" Sylvain does not move, not completely; he turns his head to look at Claude over his shoulder, eyes glinting unnaturally gold even in the shadow of the moon.

"...Yeah." Claude steps closer, one more footprint in the sand. "I do. I figured it out a while ago."

"Ah. Heh. I knew you would eventually." Sylvain's smile grows, and there's something sad in it. "Should've been more careful."

"It wouldn't have mattered." Claude lets his eyes drag down Sylvain's body, over his back and his legs. Where the seafoam bubbles up around his ankles, something shimmers, sleek and iridescent.

"Mm. Nah, guess it wouldn't have. You're too clever." The compliment is appreciated, but the words send a chill through Claude. So Sylvain had known, all along, that he would be caught. That Claude would figure him out. 

And he’d trusted him, anyway.

“You have tells, too,” Claude says, unable to face the truth of that realization. He thinks instead back to all the little things Sylvain had done to hint at his identity – a flinch away from the water, a song that drew him deliriously in, a handful of late-night swims, a lantern lit for no one in particular. A question with no readily given answer.

Sylvain laughs. “That’s what I like about you,” he says. “You’re perceptive… and confident enough to gamble on it.” 

He goes quiet. Claude smiles at his back, watches as Sylvain turns his gaze away again, back out across the sea. He takes a step forward.

"Do you still trust me?" Sylvain’s voice is quiet, almost lost among the waves. The tide rises at his feet as he walks further into it - slowly, slowly, hardly disturbing the gentle waves.

Returning to them. 

Claude stills. His breath seems frozen in his lungs, his muscles taut as his mind screams warnings. He knows the stories. Knows the songs, too, now, Sylvain’s notes and melody turning over in his mind to the rhythm of the waves. Sylvain is silent now, and yet his voice haunts Claude, ringing in his ears and drowning out the screams of his common sense. 

He blinks. Shakes his head. Clears his mind. Knows the answer, even more clearly than he had hours ago, long before the sun had dipped before the horizon.

"I do."

He steps forward. And maybe he’s a fool for it, he thinks, as the waves lick at his boots. Claude kicks them off, eyes never leaving Sylvain as he finally turns around to face Claude fully, scales crawling up his legs and freckling his hips.

He opens his arms. Spreads them wide. "Then come here.”

Claude runs. 

He dives into Sylvain's arms, falling into them as the merman walks them both back, deeper and deeper into the sea. Claude kisses him, and Sylvain drags him down, down, down, falling backwards beneath the waves. Claude doesn't see the moment of transformation, eyes closed against the seawater, but he feels it all the same: the fingers laid softly against his neck grow less distinct as webs form between them; blunt, well-trimmed nails elongate and sharpen; seams along Sylvain's throat tear open and flutter against Claude's forearms; and something flicks against his feet, reminding him of the shock of toes brushing seaweed as a child. 

He lets himself be pulled deeper, deeper, deeper. The drop-off comes sooner than he expects, and his stomach plummets with it. Sylvain lets him go, lets him sink further down; against his better judgement, Claude opens his eyes. They’re far from the surface now, far from air or hope; if his trust has been misplaced, then there’s no longer anything he can do.

But if he's going to drown, he at least wants to see the creature that killed him. And the sight does not disappoint. 

It's dark, dark enough that Claude can't make out proper colours or shapes, but what he can see is blurred flashes of brilliant reds and oranges and golds, glittering as Sylvain's tail catches diluted rays of moonlight. He watches, transfixed, spinning in the water as Sylvain swims around him, his song-like laughter muffled even as he comes closer. 

He's beautiful, for what little Claude can see of him. 

The words Sylvain speaks to him are not human, but Claude thinks he understands them on some level, anyway. _Don't be scared. I’m here._

He lets Sylvain’s arms wrap around his chest, lets his own hands take hold of them (and Claude realizes, suddenly, that Sylvain has _fins_ , he has fins, sharp and pliable all at once). He holds on tight when he feels himself get pulled upward, dragged to the surface with speed and strength unfathomable. 

They break the surface. Claude gasps for air, drawing it into his lungs desperately as moonlight floods his vision. He clings to Sylvain's neck, unable to do much else. He feels heavy, so heavy, and not just from the added weight of his soaking wet clothes. 

"You-" 

"Relax." He feels Sylvain's tail bump against his ankles as it lazily curls and sways beneath them, keeping them afloat. Claude realizes then that he's safe, still held fast in Sylvain's arms. "Did you really think I was going to drown you?" 

Claude laughs, a nervous reaction more than anything. "For a minute there, yeah, I did."

Sylvain’s laugh is far more genuine in its amusement. "I could never drown you," he says, tail flicking again against Claude’s feet. "You're way too much fun."

As if to test that statement, Sylvain dives, slipping out of Claude’s grip and swimming around him. Claude yelps with the suddenness of it, hastily treads water until Sylvain resurfaces behind him. 

“Hold your breath,” he says, and pulls Claude under again. 

This time, Claude is unafraid. He feels a hand take his (it’s so strange, being unable to lace their fingers together properly) and pull him along. Claude realizes, belatedly, that they’re moving through the water, faster than he’s ever been able to swim.

And then they’ve stopped, surfacing just out from their usual spot, the familiar rock face looming up above them. Sylvain guides Claude to it, presses his back against the rock they’d shared their first kiss on. He sides a webbed finger under the clasp of Claude’s cloak and tugs on it. He peels the soaked material away. 

“Let me see you,” Claude says. Sylvain tosses the cloak onto the rocks and swims back, far enough for Claude to finally, finally get a good look at him. 

He looks so much the same in some ways, so much different in others. His hair is the same fiery red as it’s always been, and still messy too, even soaked and flattened to his head. It's more wavy now than wind-blown, though - suitable, Claude supposes, considering who and what he is. His eyes are the same, too, despite the eerie golden glow that had only flickered there before. They're the same shape, hold the same mischievous promise that had drawn Claude in to begin with. His smile is the same, too, as enticing as it’s ever been.

But the resemblances end there. Fins have grown where Sylvain's ears should have been, long and wide and fan-like: red spindles between billowing orange-pink webs. They line his jaw, ending just above his chin, fluttering above his gills. Similar fins have sprouted on his elbows, too, and between his fingers. They're beautiful, iridescent, and Claude cannot keep himself from swimming forward and touching them, dragging his fingers along the thin, translucent membranes. 

"Beautiful," he breathes, and Sylvain laughs, the sound echoing in Claude's ears, his mind, his heart like church bells. 

"You're not so bad yourself." The sharp tips of Sylvain's teeth peek from behind his lips as his smile widens. Claude doesn't have to ask what they feel like: Sylvain kisses him again the moment the words leave his mouth, and Claude wastes no time running his tongue along their pointed edges. 

He moans, and it’s like Sylvain singing again, back on the balcony attached to Claude’s chambers. This time, however, there’s no fog clouding his mind, no mist obscuring his thoughts - just want, pure and lucid and burning.

Sylvain pushes him back toward the rocks, lips still joined and tongues still swirling round one another. Claude wonders, vaguely, if Sylvain needs to break away for air, but he gets his answer a second later when he feels himself hoisted out of the water and onto the rock face, Sylvain pulling away to heft himself up, as well.

Claude sits up and lets his eyes drag over the curve of Sylvain’s tail. It’s a brilliant, shimmering orange, scales glinting gold only when the moonlight hits them just-so. He licks his lips, reaches out to touch, and Sylvain groans, stretching out in response to the fingers gliding over his scales.

“Fuck,” he breathes. Claude moves his hands back up, the ridges of his nails caressing the junction of Sylvain’s hips where skin meets scale.

“Been a while since you’ve been touched like this?” Claude ventures. Sylvain growls in the back of his throat, a sound distinctly inhuman, and it sends a delightful chill down Claude’s spine.

He turns on his side, brackets Claude’s shoulders with both hands. "Been a while since I've wanted someone like this," he says, and he leans down to capture Claude's lips once more, hands wandering over his chest as claws grasp at his shirt.

He manages to get it off without tearing anything, and Claude's pants soon follow, discarded somewhere near his cloak. They won't dry, thrown haphazardly away as they are, but Claude can hardly find it in him to care when he's got Sylvain's hands at his back and in his hair, dragging him deeper and deeper into an already heated kiss.

He shifts onto his side, too, chest pressing up against Sylvain's. Something stirs between his legs, and without thinking, Claude reaches down, feels along the front of Sylvain's tail. He finds a seam, slides his finger along it; repeats the motion again, harder, when Sylvain breaks away from his lips with a keening moan.

"There?" Claude asks, pressing in again. His finger slips through the seam, and something meets it, squirming and writhing against his touch. He adds another finger and Sylvain nods, for once completely lost for words.

Whatever he’s found, it slides against his fingers, curling around and stroking them. Claude withdraws his hand, and the thing follows; he sees a second later it's like a tentacle, thin and writhing at the tip, but thicker the further it emerges.

Claude wraps his hand around it. Sylvain sucks a breath in through his teeth, eyes squeezing shut as his cock twitches in Claude’s hold. A hand finds Claude's arm, claws digging in as his fingers flex and curl around it.

"Please," Sylvain gasps. "More. Want - ah - wanna feel you too."

"Yeah," Claude sighs. He shifts closer to Sylvain, lets go to take his own cock in hand and guide it toward Sylvain's. He strokes both of them as best he can, his hand only just barely big enough to touch them both but not enough to be completely satisfying. That changes, however, when he feels something wrap around him.

He looks down to see Sylvain’s cock around his, the tentacle stroking him in a perfect rhythm to match the pace of Claude's hand.

"S-Sylvain," Claude gasps. He leans forward; he’s met halfway, Sylvain’s sharp teeth nicking him as he surges forward. The sting of it is delicious, enhancing the thrill he already feels, and Claude finds himself rapidly approaching his release.

He pulls back to say as much, a sharp hiss of "Close-" all he manages to get out before his orgasm is wrenched out of him. Sylvain strokes and squeezes him just right, slick and tight and perfect. Claude spends into his hand and against Sylvain's tail; he curls against the merman's chest, fingers of his free hand fisting against it.

Claude doesn't let himself linger in his post-orgasm fugue for long, drawn back from it by the sound of his own name gasped into his neck.

"Claude," Sylvain repeats, still rutting against him. "Please - in the water-"

Claude nods. He lets go of himself and Sylvain, slides down the rocks until he's half-submerged in seawater. Sylvain follows and pushes him backward, pressing him bodily to the damp stone.

He looms over Claude, eyes brighter than ever and sharp teeth cutting an imposing sight behind his lips. Claude feels something snake between his legs, and his eyes widen as he gasps out, "Yes, Sylvain, _please_."

He spreads his legs, reaches down to hold himself open, and Sylvain penetrates him, the tip of his cock thin, slick, and malleable enough that it slips past his entrance with no resistance. It's strange that it doesn't hurt, Claude thinks, even as Sylvain pushes in deeper, but the stretch is so subtle he hardly notices it but for the pleasure coursing through him.

It's unlike anything he's ever felt before. Strange and alien, yes, but all the better for it. Sylvain fills him perfectly, each pulsating thrust setting his every nerve alight. Claude clings to him, angles himself in the water so Sylvain can more easily bury himself to the base.

He presses close. Sharp teeth sink into the flesh of Claude’s trapezius muscle and he cries out, head tilting back and mouth falling open on the sound. He wraps his legs around Sylvain's waist, claws at his back with blunt nails. He doesn't see the red marks he leaves behind, but Claude can imagine them well enough, stark against Sylvain's pale skin and running the same lengths down his spine as the last little rivulets of water clinging to him.

He turns his head when Sylvain starts kissing up his neck, a hot, wet trail from shoulder to jaw to ear. "You feel so good," Sylvain trills, tongue flicking against Claude's earring and teeth catching on it. "I'm not gonna last much longer."

"It's okay, it's okay," Claude pants, near-delirious with pleasure. He cries out again as he feels one of Sylvain's slick, webbed hands wrap around his cock, hard between them once again. Claude laughs breathlessly, holds Sylvain to him, whispers into his hair: "Don't hold back. I want it. I want _you_."

And that's it, the words pushing Sylvain over the edge. He finishes inside Claude, cock pulsing rapidly as he comes. Claude follows soon after, that final thrust hitting him deep enough that starlight speckles his vision, even as he shuts his eyes against the sky.

He sags against the rock, held up only by Sylvain pressed up tight against him. Claude buries his nose in Sylvain's damp hair, inhales the scent of the sea. He feels a breath against his neck and shivers in response to it, still sensitive.

Sylvain pulls out slowly, just as easily as he'd slipped in, and shifts so that he can press his forehead to Claude's.

"Claude," he breathes. "My prince."

His words are so earnest, so sincere. Claude doesn't want to laugh, but he can't help himself, even as he swoops in for a quick kiss. "That's it?" he teases. "I just had the best sex of my life, and all you can say is my name?"

Sylvain laughs too, in spite of himself. "What am I supposed to say?" he asks.

"Oh, I don't know, but I'm sure you and that silver tongue of yours can come up with something."

Claude lets his legs fall from Sylvain's waist. He feels the bulk of Sylvain's tail move between his thighs, and he shudders again, willing himself not to get too excited. He's already come twice, and although he doesn't think he could possibly say no to a third round, to more of Sylvain, he knows his own limits. He reaches back behind himself, palms flat to the rock, and hefts himself out of the water, already missing the feeling of another body pressed up against him.

Sylvain looks up at him, smile shifting from pleased amusement to something... hollow. Sad.

"I've got it," he says, reaching up to lay his hand over Claude's. The fanned webs between his fingers gleam in the low light. "How about 'stay with me'?"

Claude's eyes drop, down and to the side, away from Sylvain. He pretends he can't hear the bitter laugh that rasps from Sylvain's throat - that he can't feel his heart clenching in response to it.

"Sylvain..."

"You won't stay here forever.” Sylvain rests his head on the back of Claude’s hand, where his own had been a moment ago. "I know you won't. You can't. Not when you have a mother to return to and a crown to inherit."

“…Yeah,” Claude says. “You’re right.”

It’s always been his intention to leave. Ever since he’d arrived in Fódlan, he’d known his time was limited. He came here with a goal, and though it’s far from being met, he has no reason to stay beyond it.

 _Had_ no reason to stay.

He laughs, though, and repeats himself as an idea – reckless, stupid, hopeful – forms in his head. "You're right." He strokes a strand of hair out of Sylvain's eyes, heart breaking, a little, when he sees the pained knit of his brows. Mending again as he gives voice to his crazy idea: "But I don't have to go alone."

Sylvain looks up at him from under his lashes, the golden glow of his wide, disbelieving eyes a comfort. He says nothing - just waits for Claude to continue.

"I'll travel by sea," he says. "The capital is on the coast; the palace isn't far. I can see you every day, if you like. Every night."

"And we can travel together." Sylvain laughs, hooks his arms around Claude's neck. "If you trust me enough, that is. I could just end up singing for you. I’d lure you overboard, pull you under, justify all those songs and stories about my kind.” He presses in close, brushes his lips against Claude’s. “I could make you sing for me, too."

"Mm. Sounds nice." Claude closes the distance between them and kisses Sylvain again, long and deep and languid. He feels a hum against his lips, Sylvain’s siren magic warming his blood dangerously a moment before he loses the sense to pull away.

It’s an impossible dream, maybe, to think he can keep Sylvain by his side even after he’s finished in Fódlan; but Claude has never been one to limit himself to the realm of possibility, or even to what others claim is real. Sylvain himself is proof of that.

It will take work. But there’s still a chance, and that is enough for Claude.

He and Sylvain have a lot to discuss, and a lot more to decide. But until they do, they have this, their secret, shared against the shores of Derdriu, hidden among the waves. 

And many, many more to come.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this and think you might like to see more, have a chat, or would like to get to know me, please check out my twitter [@tim3hopp3r](https://twitter.com/tim3hopp3r).
> 
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